A Fatal Error?
What was the main difficulty that US forces faced in fighting against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq? That they did not have a specific territory, that they were a terrorist organization with training camps and safe houses, but no standing army and no territory that they occupied and considered their own. This asymmetric conflict put the US forces at a considerable disadvantage, they were not used to fighting a terrorist war as opposed to a traditional war. It was for this reason that the US forces took many casualties, since they could defeat the Iraqi Army of Saddam Hussein quite easily, but they could not hold territory such as Falluja and Sadr City, where the populations carried out suicidal terrorist attacks against them.
The main difference and basis of conflict between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, is that the latter has taken advantage of the chaos and civil wars in Syria and Iraq to capture and occupy territory with its main armed forces. They have thus segued away from being merely a terrorist organization to being a traditional fighting force with a standing army. They have received the support of much of the Sunni Iraqi hinterland of Anbar province since the Sunnis would rather have any Sunni forces occupying them that any Shia forces, and they regard the Iraqi Army as the military arm of the Shia Government in Baghdad. Also, currently the Iraqi Army is fighting alongside the Shia militias from southern Iraq together with elements of the Iranian National Guard.
It could be that this transition from being a terrorist organization to actually being a State with a standing army is the fatal flaw that could spell the downfall of the Islamic State. Although the Iraqi Army and Shia militias greatly outnumber the IS forces in Tikrit, by ca. 30,000 to several hundred, they are finding it hard going and have not so far been able to penetrate the actual city of Tikrit. Nevertheless, eventually they must wear down the IS defensive forces. Can you imagine how much easier the US Army would find it to take Tikrit from such an inferior fighting force?
However, the US Administration’s current policy is “no boots on the ground,” in other words let Iraqis fight the IS while the US provides aerial backup and supplies. But, they are aware that the supplies could end up in the hands of the pro-Iranian militias that were until quite recently fighting US forces in Iraq itself. Politics makes strange bedfellows. Not the least strange is that the “moderate” Sunni States, fearing the growth of Iranian hegemony and nuclearization are tacitly supporting the Israeli stand against Pres. Obama’s current policies. It is not enough to have the military capability to oppose Iran, it is more important to have the necessary moral fiber to do so.
Middle East War
When Obama was first elected President, his declared aim was to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He managed to do this, but no sooner were US forces withdrawn than there was a resurgence of the Taliban and the so-called ISIL or Islamic State forces exploded out of Syria and captured large swathes of Iraq. To forestall their capturing Baghdad and give the Iraqi government a chance to recover, Obama was reluctantly forced to institute an aerial campaign against the IS forces. However, his natural inclination is to avoid another US entanglement in the Middle East. This is also partly the motivation behind his reaching for a diplomatic accord with the Iranian regime, namely he greatly fears becoming embroiled in a new conflict with the Shia regime in Tehran. But, this is misleading, he should view the Middle East as a whole, as one large area of extreme instability, where the regimes that appeared to be stable were in fact built on legs of clay and have collapsed during the process originally termed “the Arab Spring,” where the so-called Gulf Wars were merely clashes in a much larger conflict and now we see that it is the inherent instability and violence of the Arab-Iranian Muslim world that is basically at fault.
If Pres. Obama were not so imbued with the idea of making amends for supposed Western/American wrongs to the Muslim world, he might be able to see more clearly that the whole region is encompassed in one large war, with battles going on at every part of it. One battle is the Shia-Sunni conflict that dates back to the 8th century and had been kept under control by Western intervention for the past century. This is now the major war from Lebanon to Iran that pits various proxies against each other, including Hizbollah, the Assad regime, IS, the Iraqi Shia militias and the Iranian Guards. Another battle is the intra-Sunni Muslim war that pits those seeking a new Caliphate against those that want to keep control of their “modern” States, such as Saudi Arabia, Hashemite Jordan and the Gulf States (Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, UAE). Other battles pit different ethnic and sectarian groups against each other, such as Alawis and Kurds in Syria and Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq. But, basically behind it all is the inherent incapacity for peaceful civil governance in the Arab/Muslim world. Not only is there no democracy in the Arab/Muslim world, but there is no stable government either. Hence the US must rely on its only strong, stable ally in this region, Israel.
Iranian troops are engaged in fighting throughout the Middle East, they are allied with Hizbollah troops fighting for the Assad regime on the Golan Heights near the Israeli border. And they are engaged in fighting with the Shia militias supporting the Iraqi Army in the current campaign to retake Tikrit from the IS. One must see the bigger picture, both the Sunni IS and Shia Iranians are exporting their revolutions to Nigeria (Boko Haram), Somalia (Al Shabab), North Africa (Libya), Yemen (the Houthis), Egypt (Sinai) and Palestine (Hamas). As PM Netanyahu said in his speech to Congress, it is mistaken to believe that because the IS and Iranians are fighting each other, that either of them could be our allies. They are both our enemies, and they are fighting each other for supremacy in the Middle East in order to fight the West more effectively. It is illusory for Pres. Obama to think that he can ally the US with Iran because they are fighting a common enemy, namely IS. In this case “the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.”
Endemic Anti-Semitism
Journalists have been going around Western European cities, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, Manchester, wearing kippot (Jewish skull caps) identifying themselves as Jewish. In all cities they were subject to anti-Semitic abuse, but the worst was, believe it or not, not in Berlin, but in Britain. In Bradford and Manchester the abuse was not only constant and in some cases dangerous (stalking and threatening life), but the rate was twice that in the next worse place Paris. As far as I could tell, the bulk of the abuse did not come from Muslims (in Bradford there is a large Pakistani minority), but mainly from Anglos, and also the abuse had nothing to do with Israel. The excuse that people are anti-Israel, opposing the policies of the Israel Government against the poor Palestinians, or even against Israel’s right to exist as a State, does not hold, the comments were all in fact classic anti-Semitism, that is expressing hatred for the Jews as a race. In no case in Britain was Israel even mentioned, it was entirely the old hatred, “Jews go home,” ‘kill the Jews,” “Get out of our country.”
Many people are surprised by these overt manifestations of anti-Semitism in Britain, but I am not. During my boyhood and growing up in England, I experienced constant and endemic hatred expressed against myself in both an offhand and sometimes threatening way. They ranged from boyhood chants at school, to a frightening altercation on a London bus at the Angel Islington with a well-dressed man who threatened “If I see your fucking face around here again I’ll kill you, you Jew bastard” (I believed him), to condescending comments in my Cambridge College, such as “How interesting, I’ve never met a Jews before.” So I was not surprised by any of this, I know anti-Semitism is ingrained into British culture, and I chose to leave as soon as I could. I did not want my children growing up in such a hostile environment. I got my degree and left for Israel (1964-66) and then the US (1966-96) and then back to Israel. You could say this was cowardice, of giving in to the extremists (who after all are few and have no power – not true). I’d rather see it as wisdom and experience triumphing over inertia and fear of change (remember Germany).
I must say that in the USA I only had one anti-Semitic incident in my 30 years living there, and that was when the Italian American secretary who was giving out the pay checks referred to the fact that the Jews were more interested in the money than others. I complained about her to our boss, but he being an anti-Semitic Polish-Russian did nothing. However, the fact is that there is growing anti-Semitism in the US, particularly on College campuses. A prime example of this was the recent interrogation of a qualified Jewish applicant, Rachel Beyda, for a position on the Judicial Board of the Student Council in UCLA. Instead of asking her routine questions as the members of the nominating committee had done for other applicants, they questioned her ability to be unbiased in all subjects due to her being Jewish. Their attitudes were not only rude and even hostile, but actually racist, as if she was unfit for holding such an office because she was Jewish. In a 40 min recorded discussion the anti-Semitic attitudes of the majority won out and Rachel was rejected. It was only the intervention of the adult faculty advisor who pointed out that if any other minority student had been treated in that way it would be considered unreservedly “racist,” that some members reversed themselves. Later the University and the members of the Committee issued apologies. Rachel was appointed, but she knows that she will operate in a hostile environment and that the cat is out of the bag. A majority of active students in the Student Council of UCLA and no doubt elsewhere, are anti-Semitic. Once again this case had nothing to do with Israel.
